In April of 2012 I went to the Sacramento Delta to take photos of both the M3 and the 1M. The wife drove the 1M and helped me take some cool pictures of both cars. I was hoping to get some better pictures but that just means I just have to go back out there and take more, oh darn.

[quote=m3dragon;12709043]So the long awaited big items arrived today. Thank you to the Evolve guys for a great packing job. A thing to point out is that the bumper comes with the gasket, splitters, and tow hoot cover. So I have a spare tow cover, 2 extra splitters and a spare seal. Kind of nice but at the same time could have saved the funds. Ok as usual images below.

Items all packed up and delivered

All the miscellaneous parts needed to install and complete the bumper installation.

Last of the interior parts from BMW were in this order. One step closer to getting the car to the interior shop. I hope to be able to pick the seats up next week as they are in.

The bumper itself. It comes painted which is kind of a bummer as I need to repay it. The bumper also seems to be some sort of carbon fiber? First time seeing a OE CSL bumper off a car.

Hi Adam

Great to see it all coming together! I have to say BMW do a great job of packing the bumper and BTW it is Carbon Fibre! Hence the hefty price tag

I am not sure how much tuning can be done. The shop said most of the time the tunes you get from the shops are pretty much maxed. I guess I need to find out more about what evlove is actually changing for each of our cars.

If you are still running the D/A Race Software, trust me, Evolve will make power on that

Getting cams and even your current exhaust setup will require some very nice tweaks to VANOS mapping. There have been a lot of advancements in tuning potential for the MSS54 with many of the thanks to Evolve Automotive.

I know a guy who bought a used E46 M3 and he thinks he had the D/A Race Software on it when he bought it. He ended up getting the Evolve tune after discussing it with me and he made a nice amount of power on top of the tune. The fact that you have cams as well, I imagine it to be an even greater difference. Again, he thought he had it, so I'm not 100% sure if he did or not. Trust me, the Evolve tune is an absolute necessity

By May of 2012 I had the light bulb moment that said dam the torpedoes and full speed ahead on the CSL conversion. So I placed my orders in May for a LARGE amount of parts. The following list is what the first round of modification entailed.

I am making CSL door panels in alcataera. I got the idea from the interior of my 1M. Also I wanted to be different then everyone.
51417896919 --- Door handle front left-CSL
51417896920 --- Door handle front right

While I was waiting for parts to arrive, I setup a drive to Santa Cruz. This drive if you know the area has some “hidden” back road sections that most people do not drive on. This allows for some great time just blasting around tight corners or parking in the road to take pictures.

June 2012 has now rolled around and all the parts I have ordered have slowly started arriving. The first items off the large parts order list where the Turner 3.91 gears and reinforcement kit.

The cheapest upgrade I bought was a set of EBay black aluminum SMG paddles. While cheap, I loved the look and the paint
will not start to bubble like the OE BMW ones did.

After the SMG paddles, I received the CSL Intake cam HOWEVER it was damaged in shipping. I had the Exhaust cam already as it was a wedding gift from the now ex-wife in 2008. At this point in time, I had to return the cam and fight to get a new one.

I was pretty happy to see I was a consistent 312 with just the mods I have. Now with cams, intake and the diff I think the car would be a little more 1Mish in feel. Not my goal but I won't complain =)

Were your 312whp runs with the D/A Race Tune?

Here are dynos that I found of that Evolve client and M3forum member, djm3. Both runs have the same exact modifications (Airbox, CSL Headers/Cams, Exhaust). The only difference is that the before is a base tune, and the after is a tune after dyno time with the magical wizard of Evolve, Sal!

When looking at the dynos, what's most important is knowing the change in power, not necessarily the final numbers.

Please note, although the dynos are posted on my server, they are property of djm3 that were publicly posted elsewhere. djm3 also posted that the runs were on a bad coil pack.

Parts continue to slowly arrive every day. The bearing items from Summit Racing showed up so I could do the differential gear upgrade.

Next item to arrive is the Zionsville Competition Radiator and fan kit. The same day as these parts arrived, I got an Email that the CSL steering rack is on its way and the new Intake cam was shipped from Germany to the US supplier.

July 2012 the now fiancÚ and I came back from a two week vacation in Aruba and Curacao to find that Mr. UPS has left me some new items. These parts were the Evolve R Tuner system, 73MM Wheel stud conversion, and the CSL/Completion steering rack.

The first of the new upgrades required me to pull the SMG control unit and ship it to ESS for their SMG software. I will have more comments on this later on as I found out some interesting info on this later down the road.

Big box should up with some of the parts you all have been waiting to see. CSL intake, install hardware, air ducts and less a few parts the supplier missed in the shipping. I contacted the supplier and they are shipping the missing items from this order. So have to wait for the last few parts need to have the complete CSL Intake. Also included in the box where the CSL door handles to make the custom CSL doors.

Soon after the big box showed up the miscellaneous box of parts showed up. This contained mostly the parts for the center console. Also included was the OE BMW differential parts and the SMG expansion tank. Basically all the nuts and bolts which means all that is left to arrive is the CSL cam, Bumper, snorkel and center console.

Mid-August 2012 I finally got the SMG controller back from ESS. I was disappointed in how they returned the unit to me. Controller was not in a static free bag as I sent it to them and it was in a USPS flat rate box with only one pass of bubble wrap. After reinstalling the SMG Controller, I went on a 40 miles of driving and could not tell 100% if there is a change. From what I notice, it seems to change up and downshifts are a smidgen faster in feel. I am taking it on a “spirited” drive on August 30 so we will see how it drives.

Loaded all the parts up and car is off to the shop to get all the major goodies installed. I will post some more images of the parts later tonight. Never got around to doing detailed images like I wanted to but at least I have images of everything before it goes on the car.

The drive I did on August 30th was the Livermore Mines run. This time I was able to arrange a photo shoot at an old airbase. This made for some great images, which I need to go back and do once the car is done.

The Monday after the drive, the Samsco hoses arrived. I hope that these will help keep the car running cool for years to come.

Saturday 9/1/2012 I was finally was able to install one of the major parts on the M3. My fiancÚs father works for a Porsche/Subaru shop so I was able to get access to a lift so I could install the steering rack. I combined it with two oil changes as well. Might as well make the most of having a lift right. Wife drove the 1M to the shop on a nice Saturday AM drive there.

The following images are of the install of the steering rack. Sorry for the crappy image quality as all I had was my Iphone. The install of the steering was pretty straight forward and took about 2 hours to do the install. I also changed the oil as it was due.